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Rob Gronkowski, Sterling Moore Highlight Patriots’ Top 10 Plays From 2011 Season

The Patriots were involved in 2,552 offensive and defensive plays throughout the course of the 2011 season, including the playoffs. Considering the fact that they advanced to the Super Bowl, a vast majority of those plays were good ones.

So naturally, it's pretty difficult to whittle them down to the 10 best, or the top 0.4 percent of the plays they ran over the entire year. But hey, that's what we did.

Their "best" plays can mean a number of different things. They can highlight great moments of athleticism, or the play could be symbolic of a monumental performance. Of course, it always helps when the play leads to a victory, particularly if it happens in the fourth quarter.

In the interest of spreading the ball around, tight end Rob Gronkowski wasn't included in all 10 moments, though his candidacy was valiant in that regard, much like cornerback Devin McCourty for this 2010 list.

There were 15 finalists for the top-10 list, and there were two or three exclusions that were extremely difficult to push out. For those plays, as well as a few others, check out Wednesday's Two-Minute Drill. Oh, and for the sake of fairness, if you've got the stomach for it, read the other side of the list for the 10 worst plays of the Patriots' season. 

Click here for the Patriots' top 10 plays of the season >>

Have a question for Jeff Howe? Send it to him via Twitter at @jeffphowe or send it here. He will pick a few questions to answer every week for his mailbag.